1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image reading apparatus and an image recording apparatus, in which a plurality of manuscripts being placed on a manuscript table are read by one scanning operation and then processed.
2. Description of Related Art
When manuscripts are read in the manuscript reading apparatus of a conventional copying machine, manuscripts are conventionally read using a manuscript table or an automatic manuscript feeder. In the case that a plurality of manuscripts are read using a manuscript table and that the images of a plurality of pages are output to one sheet of paper, the user is requested to arrange the manuscripts so as not to be misaligned, in order to obtain an aligned output. For this reason, it takes time to arrange the manuscripts so as to be aligned properly, thereby being inconvenient for the user.
For the purpose of solving this problem, a conventional manuscript reading apparatus uses an automatic manuscript reading apparatus in which two manuscripts are aligned on a manuscript table during feeding, whereby the images of the two manuscripts are output so as to be aligned on a sheet of paper (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 07-239586).
Furthermore, another manuscript reading apparatus has also been proposed, in which a plurality of manuscripts being placed carelessly on a manuscript table are collectively read as an image, the edges of the manuscripts are detected from the image, skew correction is carried out when the manuscripts are rectangular, the respective manuscripts are extracted from the input image, and then output processing is carried out (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-10059).
However, in the method described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 07-239586, an automatic manuscript reading apparatus is required, and the way of placing manuscripts is the same as that in ordinary copying. In the case that manuscript reading is carried out using, the above-mentioned reading method, the user is always required to perform mode setting manually. This has a problem of causing inconvenience to the user.
Furthermore, in the method described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-10059, although manuscript arrangement is done as desired, it is necessary that the image of the whole manuscript table is once stored in a buffer, that the image is subjected to edge detection processing and clipping processing, and that the clipped image is subjected to skew correction. This has a problem of occupying large amounts of the memory source and CPU source.